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30 Day Self Harm Challenge

I have decided only to post answers where I find I have written something remotely interesting. A lot of the time I have nothing to say, so I’ll leave those days out.

Day 3) What is your motivation to recover?

I feel as if I have reached a point where I could live and cope without self-harm. My medications are finally working, really well actually, and it’s been a few months since I was depressed or even dysthymic. I don’t feel the need to cut when I am OK- I know other people do, and consider themselves addicted to the act but I’m not. It’s been a long time since I “seriously” self harmed and I think I can keep it that way. I would like to.

I am trying to build myself a life I can be proud of, with minimal drama. Cutting holds me back from feeling like a “real” adult. I am not implying here that “real adults” don’t cut, only that for me, self-harm arrests me in old memories of moments where I was unable to cope. I can’t be proud of my life if I can’t move forward with it.

I spoke to a friend the other day (maybe post-able?) about memories, how they trap you for a while in an old moment with the old feelings and the old responses- how you wouldn’t always undo them, even if you could. While you’re in the moment, it’s yours all over again, you feel exactly the same. You look on your old self from above, with the benefit of hindsight that is futile… that’s how I feel about self harm. Maybe there are moments I wouldn’t change. But I can change what I do now. So why not do it?

Cutting isn’t something I do daily, weekly or even monthly now, but I would like it to be something I don’t do at all. Sometimes, in frustration or momentary sadness, or fed-up-ness, I feel an urge to do myself minimal damage. Today I briefly disliked myself in the mirror and wanted to hurt. Then… I realised it wouldn’t help me. It wouldn’t change me, or anything else. I don’t need to see the blood, to feel the pain, to watch myself hurt that way. I actually, for the first time, felt a tiny bit sick at the prospect of damaging myself. I did not want to. I would like it not to be my fallback plan because in the long term, for me, it solves nothing at all. Why fall back on a habit that isn’t necessary?